| Victory for UOW student Ben Allen in the National Adventure Racing Ch... Victory for UOW student Ben Allen in the National Adventure Racing Championships at Lorne in Victoria. Photo: Andrew Connolly | 
| Ben Allen on the mountain bike leg of the National Adventure Racing C... Ben Allen on the mountain bike leg of the National Adventure Racing Championships. Photo: Andrew Connolly |
Allen wins National Adventure Racing Championships
21 Dec 2007 | Bernie Goldie
The switch from surf lifesaving to elite triathlon took another promising step forward for UOW student Ben Allen after he recently won the National Adventure Racing Championships at Lorne, Victoria.
Allen also claimed the overall point score of the Anaconda series and Australian University Sport National Championships for Adventure Racing.
“I’ve done the whole series Gold Coast, Foster and Western Australia and out of all the races Lorne Victoria was the toughest,” he said.
Allen set up his win with a strong swim in the 1.9km swim Leg, exiting the water in first place. He then built on his lead in the 13km ccean kayak leg, and by the time he reached Cumberland River Beach, he led by five minutes over Glenn Kirby, with Tristan Read and Steve Kerr a further minute behind, and 2006 winner Jarad Kohlar another three minutes back.
“Coming from a surf background, I knew I had to use my strengths to my advantage and get a lead on the other competitors,” he said.
Kirby then put in a stunning effort in the 11.2km coastal/trail run, and by the time Allen had reached the rocky section along the coast, Kirby had caught him. Meanwhile Kohlar, a running specialist, was chasing them both down, and had reduced the gap to the two leaders to under two minutes by the time they had all returned to Lorne.
“Towards the end of the run there was 4km of rock hopping. It was really hard and I rolled my ankle and lost focus for a bit at which time Glenn passed me.
“I was able to refocus and get myself back in the race, and I knew if I could do that then I was in with a chance.”
However, it was Allen who made light work of the transition into the 23km mountain bike leg, leaving well before Kirby and racing ahead.
It proved to be a decisive break as Allen stomped up the first climb over the Otways, creating a big enough lead for him to ‘enjoy’ the final 2.3km Tourism Victoria Beach Run. Allen won in a time of 4:02:06, 7:39 ahead of Kirby, with Kohlar finishing third, 18 minutes behind Allen.
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